Personal ramblings of Elizabeth Andrews Fae artist and author of 'Faeries and Folklore of the British Isles,' 'Faerie Flora'and the 'The Lavender Witch' all available from
www.magic-myth-legend.co.uk and Amazon

Saturday, 23 November 2013

Cristmas tree

Have you set up your Christmas Tree yet? I haven't, I resist until a couple of weeks before the big day.

Then I crawl into the attic and try and find the boxes of ornaments that have disappeared under a year's

worth of clutter, and why do the wires of the fairy lights always get tangled?

But never mind...here;s a bit of waffle about Christmas trees!

The traditional decoration in England was always the Yule Log, the earliest mention of a Christmas Tree was in 1829. There is a note in Grevilles Diary in which he describes three little Christmas trees he saw at Pashanger. Princess Lieven was apparently responsible for this spectacle, 'as is customary in Germany.'

Prince Albert is usually credited with the introduction of Christmas Trees, starting the custom at Windsor in 1841, although George III's wife Queen Charlotte introduced a Christmas tree at a party she gave for children in 1800;but the custom did not at first spread much beyond the royal family.
Queen Victoria as a child was familiar with the custom and a tree was
placed in her room every Christmas. In her journal for Christmas Eve
1832, the delighted 13-year-old princess wrote, "After dinner... we then
went into the drawing-room near the dining-room... There were two large
round tables on which were placed two trees hung with lights and sugar
ornaments. All the presents being placed round the trees.

After her marriage to her German cousin Prince Albert by 1841 the custom became even more widespread throughout Britain.
In 1847, Prince Albert wrote: "I must now seek in the children an echo
of what Ernest [his brother] and I were in the old time, of what we felt
and thought; and their delight in the Christmas-trees is not less than
ours used to be". In 1848 The Illustrated London News
described the trees in Windsor Castle in detail and showed the main
tree, surrounded by the royal family, on its cover. In fewer than ten
years their use in better-off homes was widespread. By 1856 a northern
provincial newspaper contained an advert alluding casually to them,
as well as reporting the accidental death of a woman in Somerset, whose
dress caught fire as she lit the tapers on a Christmas tree.
They had not yet spread down the social scale however, as a report from
Berlin in 1858 contrasts the situation there where "Every family has
its own" with that of Britain, where Christmas trees were still the
preserve of the wealthy or the "romantic".

A Saints Day particularly associated with Christmas is St Thomas's Day 21st Dec, although he has no particular association with the day itself it is the Winter Solstice.

'St Thomas Grey, St Thomas Grey

Longest night and shortest day'

Uptil until the second world war women went a 'Thomassing' or 'agooding' going from house to house to beg for wheat to make Christmas cakes and bread. Each householder was obliged to hand over a pint of wheat which was then taken to the village mill to be ground into flour without charge. In return for the donation of grain a sprig of holly or mistletoe would be given. In Staffordshire the clergyman also gave the women each a shilling and in some parishes a collection was taken in Church and called St Thomases Dole.

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About Me

Hi I am a artist and author Elizabeth Andrews, and I love all things Faerie. My work can be found at www.magic-myth-legend.co.uk where if you wish you can purchase cards and prints of all things magical from Faerie to Mermaids and even Dragons!
This interest has become an obsession over the last ten year resulting in a fully illustrated book detailing Faerie and Folklore around the British Isles. I hope that if you, like me, are a 'Faerie nut' that you will enjoy this blog as I comment on any faerie activity around the British Isles. However I do find myself adding more and more quirky items on folkLore so I apologise but I find them so fascinating and funny!!